The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has condemned today for the first time a member state, Switzerland, for violation of the Convention on human rights, ruled in favor of the Swiss association “Elders for the climate” which had criticized Bern's inaction in mitigating the effects of climate change.
The Court, which meets in Strasbourg, ruled that the Swiss Confederation violated the rights of its citizens by not adopting the necessary measures to combat climate change, as required by the 2015 Paris climate agreement (COP21). It is the first time that the ECtHR has condemned a state for inaction against climate change.
The verdict comes a few hours after the alarm launched by the European Union weather service Copernicus, according to which the average temperature recorded in the last 12 months between April 2023 and March 2024 was the highest ever recorded, exceeding the limit of +1.5°C compared to average pre-industrial levels (between 1850 and 1900) set by the Paris Agreement of 2015 and the COP26 in Glasgow of 2021.
The ECHR ruling against Switzerland
With a majority of 16 votes to 1, the ECHR ruled that the Swiss Confederation had violated Article 8 of the Convention on Human Rights, which protects the “right to respect for private and family life”. According to the judges, this rule establishes the right to effective protection by state authorities against the serious harmful effects caused by climate change on people's lives, health, well-being and quality of life.
“With regard to the complaint of the appellant association directed against Switzerland, the Court notes that the process of defining the relevant internal regulatory framework had serious shortcomings, in particular the inability of the Swiss authorities to quantify, through a budget of the carbon dioxide or otherwise, the nationally applicable limits on greenhouse gas emissions,” reads the ECHR ruling.
“Furthermore, we find that Switzerland has not achieved its past targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Swiss authorities have not acted in a timely and adequate manner to develop and implement the legislation and related measures, in accordance with the positive obligations that Article 8 of the Convention imposes on them in the field of climate change. The Swiss Confederation has therefore exceeded the limits of its margin of discretion and has not fulfilled its obligations in this regard. There was therefore a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.”
However, the judges unanimously ruled that Switzerland had violated Article 6 of the same Treaty, which protects the “right to a fair trial”. In fact, in May 2020 the Swiss Federal Court rejected the appeal presented by the “Elders for the Climate”, establishing that this population group is not affected more by the consequences of climate change than others.
So the association, which includes 2,500 Swiss women with an average age of 73, presented the case to the ECHR together with four individual appeals. The Court found that the association was entitled to bring legal action on behalf of those who say they are threatened by climate change but rejected the requests of the four individual applicants, finding that they could not meet the criteria relating to victim status.
In the same hours, however, the ECHR also ruled on two other cases, both declared inadmissible, relating to climate change. In fact, the Court rejected the request of the former ecologist mayor of the French town of Grande-Synthe, who asked to condemn Paris for inactivity in mitigating the effects of climate change, and the appeal of six Portuguese students who wanted to force states to respect their obligations taken on climate protection.
#Climate #ECHR #condemns #Switzerland #violated #human #rights #climate #change
